This section provides background information related to the present disclosure which is not necessarily prior art.
Certain medical procedures involve positioning medical devices, such as catheters, stimulation leads, and the like, within a patient. In some cases, medical professionals rely on an image guided system to position these medical devices. For example, these image guided systems include a stylet with a conductive coil that is supported in a known position relative to the medical device. The stylet is coupled to the medical device to be inserted into the patient through a prepared incision, and a varying electromagnetic field is generated about the patient. The field induces a current in the coil that is dependent on the position and vector of the stylet. The current is detected in order to determine the location of the coil and, thus, the location of the medical device within the patient. Moreover, these techniques can be used with an imaging device (e.g., fluoroscopy, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computed tomography (CT), etc.) so that the medical professional can see the location of the medical device relative to the patient's anatomy. Thus, the medical device can be positioned with a fair amount of accuracy.
However, conventional stylets may not be practical for certain medical procedures. For instance, conventional stylets may not provide high enough signal-to-noise ratio during use, leading to inaccuracies within the system. More specifically, some stylets are very small in cross sectional area so that they can be routed through small blood vessels and the like, and because of their compact size, the navigation coils provided on these stylets are also small, thereby reducing the signal-to-noise ratio. Also, some stylets are routed through blood vessels or along other non-linear paths, but some conventional stylets may be too rigid to be routed in this manner. Furthermore, medical professionals typically push and twist on one end of the stylet in order to route the stylet along a non-linear path, but some stylets may not adequately transfer these forces longitudinally along the stylet, making the stylet difficult to place in its intended position.